


The Queen Returned

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: (mentioning how Hades treats Zag I mean), 1.0 Spoilers, Body Worship, F/M, Fade to... Gray? let's go with that, Gentle femdom, Heavy pillow talk, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pegging, Post-Credits, Reunion Sex, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26934262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: The Lord of the Underworld lays down his burdens at his Queen's feet.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 139





	The Queen Returned

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I'm a simple woman. When I hear a man tell the woman he loves that he would do anything she asks, I buckle on my clown shoes and I write some femdom. Don't look at me like "Hades gets pegged" isn't already the modern youth's opinion of mythcanon, anyway.

Things are awkward, but not as awkward as Persephone feared they would be. She dines with her family. And although it seems that Zagreus could have spent an eternity asking her questions, when Nyx comes to request his help with some fabricated task, he looks between Persephone and Hades and seems to understand that they need their own time. He withdraws after one last embrace.

Hades, stiff in the way he’s always been when he is shy, asks Persephone if she will come to his—their—chambers. She takes his hand, smiles, and follows him there.

The bedroom is as simple as she remembers—imposing stone, limited decoration, not fully tidy but sparse enough that the messiness is not overwhelming. Even so, Hades immediately sets about straightening up, picking up a cape he’d left on the floor and brushing the wrinkles out of it until Persephone calls his name.

“Hades,” she says fondly. “Leave that.”

He turns. “Yes, my Queen,” he says in a somber voice.

“Come here.”

He draws near as she orders him to, always so hesitant for how he towers over her. This is but one reason she favors him over his brothers: his awareness of the power he wields by nature, and his willingness to shrink back from it when he does not wish to overwhelm. Zeus and Poseidon are careless by comparison, trampling over gods and mortals alike. But Hades has never been careless with her. Persephone takes his hands, feeling the warm pulse of ichor under his skin, and draws him a little closer to the bed.

“It’s been so long, Hades,” she murmurs. Her thumbs trace the backs of his hands. “Do you still wish to kneel for me?”

A shiver goes through him, and brow twitches with longing. “I do,” he says, an ache in his voice.

“Then do so.” She tugs down on his hands with the subtle certainty of a lead dancer, and he sinks to his knees.

Smiling, Persephone takes a seat on the edge of the bed—they are much closer in height this way—and curls a gentle hand around the back of his neck. With a long sigh, Hades leans forward to rest his heavy head in her lap. His arms hang limply at his sides. He lets her wind her hands into his long black hair and whimpers as she begins to massage his scalp, the sounds muffled against her knees.

“Persephone, I have… longed for this,” he admits, his voice strained. She finds the spot at the base of his skull that has always needed the most attention, and she presses in firmly. Hades cannot help but release a groan at that. “This— _mmrgh_ —care from you. The opportunity to hand everything over to you and rest. I have missed it more than I can say, My Queen.”

“I as well.” She kneads her fingertips into his scalp, remembering its landscape and the places he holds his tension even after so long. She alternates between a firm massage and combing through his hair, and all the while he makes small, unthinking noises of relief. Sadly, she observes, “You’re tired, Hades.”

He gives a shaky, bitter laugh. “I’m so tired,” he agrees in a broken voice that Persephone doubts he’s ever let anyone else hear. “I’ve been tired for so long.”

“You’ve worked so hard, haven’t you?” The muscles of his neck. “A job you never wanted, and yet you perform it with a dedication and integrity that no one could question.” The tangles in his long locks of hair. “I have always admired it, Hades. I have always loved you for your straightforwardness—” The hollows behind his ears. “—and your honesty.”

“My honesty…”

Persephone frowns slightly. Had she misspoken? Hades had tensed at that, and a moment later he raises his head to meet her eyes. “Persephone, I… Zagreus.”

Oh. Beginning to understand what he means, Persephone withdraws her hands and folds them in her lap as Hades averts his gaze again, tucking one arm across his chest.

“What did he tell you of how I’ve treated him?” he asks, his voice thick with regret.

Persephone answers truthfully. “He said that you stopped at nothing to prevent him from escape, and that you have often been harsh with him.”

Hades grimaces. “Then he understates it.”

“I know.”

She heard the truth in the hesitant way Zagreus asked if Hades mistreated her; she saw it in the way he grows brittle around the subject of Hades, speaking lightly and deflecting while his eyes dart all over. She watched the two of them interact. Zagreus is all defenses when it comes to his father, unable to hide the ache of past wounds or the anticipation of future ones. He knows a side of Hades that she has never seen.

And yet this, here, is the Hades she knows, weary under all the heavy weight he bears. “I have been cruel, Persephone,” he confesses. “I have belittled and discouraged him at every turn. I have not known how to feel love for him and never sought to try. Our son.” He hangs his head. “Had I known you would someday return to us, I would have acted differently, but what excuse is that?”

It is no excuse at all. Persephone’s heart aches for the years of pain she was not here to prevent, and for the pain she sees before her now. Gently, she reaches out to guide Hades’ head back into her lap. He resists, going rigid for a moment, but she says, “Obey me,” and he does. She combs her fingers through his hair and speaks quietly but firmly. 

“You will be better now,” she says, an order. “And we will not ask him to forgive you before he is ready, if indeed he ever is. But Hades, you _must_ be better. I already love him so much. I will not see him abused any longer.” 

“Yes, my Queen,” he mumbles into her knees.

She resumes her gentle massage of his neck and scalp, humming a soothing surface tune she had learned once from a lost traveler. When the song ends, she quiets, and Hades lets out a long sigh. She touches his chin and tilts his face up towards hers.

“Do you still love me, Hades?” 

“Eternally,” he says, his eyes haunted with how deeply he means it.

“Then will you show me?” 

Words she has said so many times before. Hades recognizes their message and, as she nods down at the floor between them, moves backwards on his knees until he has the space to bend his towering frame low over her bare feet. He exhales first, a warm tickle against her toes, and then presses his lips to the top of one foot. Persephone catches her breath. She remembers this—the scratch of his mustache, the heat of his mouth—but memory pales in comparison to the reverent way he kisses her now, steady and slow, each touch of his lips weighty with everything he devotes to her. Even when he goes further, the flat of his tongue emerging to glide over her ankle bones, it is not lascivious, not an act of lust, but an offering of sensation and of himself.

It is not lascivious, but Persephone feels desire stealing over her anyway, an ache blooming in her hips so quickly that it startles her. She was alone for so long, and untouched, and rarely did she let herself even remember this let alone long for it. Hades’ wide hand cups the back of her calf, his mouth hot against her skin, and she twitches and presses a hand to her lips to hold in a moan.

“Hades,” she says, her voice trembling between her fingers.

He lifts his head to meet her gaze, his eyes burning. “Persephone…” There are aeons of memory and meaning in his voice. “I would not… move too quickly.”

But he must wish to, clearly he must as much as she does if he is even saying such a thing. Persephone remembers the heat and rocking weight of his body over hers, encircling and enclosing her, his hair spilling over her skin. She remembers perching atop him, legs spread so wide they stung in order to straddle his hips, riding him slowly with her hands on his stomach to steady herself. She remembers, and to move too quickly is exactly what she wants.

“Are we not wife and husband?” she asks, aiming for playfulness but missing because desire is still quivering in her voice. “Am I not the Queen returned at last to my Lord?”

He swallows. “We are, my Queen. You are.”

“I don’t think I should be kept waiting.” Blood and darkness and the three Fates, she cannot bear to be kept waiting.

And neither can he. His skin radiating with heat, Hades presses his whiskered cheek to the inner corner of her knee. “Persephone—my Queen. I will do all that you ask of me,” he says, his voice rough with yearning. “But we must be more careful, now. Of… the risk of…”

“… The risk of pregnancy,” Persephone finishes for him, suddenly realizing, a dozen flying images in her mind brought crashing to the earth by her husband’s practical concern. The heat in her face changes its character and she tries to regain some sense of forethought. “Yes, you’re right, of course. We were never particularly careful about that, were we.”

“We thought we had no reason to be!” Hades says with resentment in his voice. “If those blasted Fates had not deceived us…”

But she places a finger on his lips to quiet him. “Hush,” she chides. “It has all worked out in the end, hasn’t it? We have Zagreus. What if this place had one day driven me away and Zagreus had not been there to bring me home?”

“ _Urgh_ …” 

Hades closes his eyes as he groans, but not, Persephone thinks, to shut out the mention of their son; it is to drive away the thought that they might have been lost to each other forever without him. She strokes his lips in thought and shivers when he lets her thumb slip between them to suck on it lightly. It chases away what embarrassment she had felt a moment before, and she gives a hint of a smile.

“We’re lucky, then,” she says, “that we have less risky options.”

“Indeed.” Hades looks down to place a slow kiss on her knee, and he hesitates for a moment. “My Queen, I would… receive… if you are willing.” 

“Oh!” This is not what she expected. “You still have it?” 

He is awkward and stiff again—shy. “Yes… in the back of the wardrobe.”

“I see. Then we’d better be glad that your portrait of me was in such an obvious place and our son did not have to dig deeper for evidence that you still thought fondly of me.”

Hades groans again, as she expected. Persephone laughs softly and strokes the sides of his face. “Of course I am willing, Hades. Bring it to me?” 

“Yes, my Queen.”

He stands and goes to the wardrobe. Persephone stands as well and rids herself swiftly of her white gown. When Hades turns back, harness and dildo in hand, he stops frozen at the sight of her naked body, his mouth falling half-open as he beholds her.

“Persephone,” he says, as if he hasn’t believed until now that she is truly here. His gaze makes her feel radiant, and divine in a way that she hasn’t felt in years.

“Come here, my Hades,” she says, smiling. “My glorious lord over all the dead. Bring that to me and let me take care of you.” 

*

Hades is a stubborn god; none contest this. Unyielding, Persephone has heard him called, and grim. But no one knows her husband the way she does. No one knows how desperately he needs to set down the burdens he carries on his broad shoulders and breathe. And no one knows what he looks like when he does, his eternal scowl easing, his lips parted and his muscles slack, his hair spread out over the bed as she slowly rolls her hips against his backside, murmuring endearments while he moans. This secret is hers: something he offers to her, something she treasures.

When they are finished, and have put aside what they’ve dirtied to be cleaned later, Persephone joins him in his bed and he wraps an arm around her. She inhales in his scent as she is surrounded in him. 

“I’ve missed you, Hades,” she admits, stroking the forearm that encloses her. “When I left, I thought the ache would fade with time, but… when Zagreus came to me, I found that it was as fresh as ever. That I had only been burying it all these years. I have been far lonelier than I realized, and were it not for our son, I might have spent the rest of eternity like that.”

“Yes, well.” Hades’ voice is gruff, but he holds her tighter. “Sometimes his stubbornness has its uses.”

“He gets it from you, you know.”

“Oh, certainly. And it has caused us to butt heads more than you can imagine. He is not well-behaved, Persephone.”

“Hades.”

“ _Ugh_.” His frustration is with himself. “I suppose you will form your own conclusions.”

It’s an improvement. Turning over in his arms, Persephone faces her husband and reaches up to stroke his face. He holds her gaze for a moment, then closes his eyes. 

“Persephone,” he says, his voice rough, “it would break me if you were to leave again. I know the Underworld is not an easy place to live, but if there is anything I can do to make it easier—”

“Hush, Hades,” she says, and brings her lips to his. He moans softly into the kiss. And when she pulls back, he remains silent, waiting for her. She says, “We cannot worry so much about the future. But I will stay here. I want to.”

“Will you swear it?”

But at the hint of selfish hope in his words, she cannot help but frown. “Swear as you made Nyx swear?”

He recognizes the reprimand in her voice and does not respond.

“I will not swear, Hades. I will not bind my future to my past with an oath I might someday regret. I want to choose.” 

“You want—”

“I want to choose to stay here. Over and over, even when it’s hard. Without being bound.” She gives a wry smile. “Maybe that’s naïve, or the sort of willfulness the Fates resent, but it’s what I want.”

Hades looks at her, silent and thoughtful for a long moment. Then he wraps his arm around her back and holds her closer. “Then that is what I want for you, my Queen. I will do all that I can to make that possible for you.”

She nuzzles his bare chest. “No need to be so serious, Hades. We’ll figure this out over time, you and I. All right?”

“All right.”

And then they are quiet together, the Lord of the Underworld and his Queen, in accord once more after an age apart.


End file.
